Paris, Je t'aime: Partie Deux

The only thing that is better than dining, shopping, and falling in love in Paris is walking in Paris. Every walking trail in the city guarantees picturesque vistas, enhanced by pleasant weather and uniform, ubiquitous pavements. The only downside is that walking in itself is a time consuming activity. As much as exploring Paris on foot is fun, it isn’t something that can be done in a three-day maiden trip to the city. But we didn’t want to miss out completely on the walking experience, so wherever possible, we squeezed in a bit of a walk, like this one from the Hotel de Ville to Shakespeare and Co.

Our walking path

You know a city is fancy when even its city hall is called ‘hotel’😜. The Hotel de Ville (City Hall), has been the headquarters of the Paris municipality since the 1300s, and has been a crucial part of the its past, from being the headquarters of the French Revolution to the site for Charles de Gaulle’s speech after the liberation of Paris. The building, which was almost completely burnt down during the Paris commune, was renovated in the 1800s and is an imposing structure with statues of men in armour on the roof and inlaid sculptures. While the Place de l’Hotel de Ville or the plaza around the Hotel de Ville is a beautiful, gravel-laden square surrounded by shrubs and fountains today, its OG claim to fame was being the site of executions in France, where gallows and later, guillotines were placed. Cheerful, huh?

Hotel de Ville 

A short walk from the Hotel de Ville across the Seine led us to the famed Notre Dame de Paris. Located on the eye-shaped island Ile de la Cite, the cathedral is a gothic architectural marvel in itself with its beautiful rose windows and biblical sculptures. For me, however, it was home to Quasimodo, the poor hunchback bellringer who (in my opinion) fell in love with the wrong woman (Esmeralda) in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Apparently the book did much more than teach the readers the triviality of external beauty, for after its release in 1831 and eventual popularity, the cathedral began a twenty-five year old restoration project in 1845.

The beautiful Notre Dame

The statuettes on Notre Dame

The rose window

Looking at the intricate facade of the church, I couldn’t help remembering Quasimodo, and as if on cue, the four o’clock church bells rang. Love is good, love is powerful, but when it happens with the wrong person, love leads to doom.

Long queues outside the Notre Dame and lack of time dissuaded us from going into the church, so we spent over half an hour just clicking pictures and making our way through the crowd for a quiet place to just sit and take in the beauty of the church.

Right across the Seine lies Shakespeare and Co, a quaint little bookstore which was the meeting point of literary greats such as Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. Stacked with books from the floor to the ceiling, the shop is a bibliophile’s paradise with nooks and benches to sit, and even a little cat to cuddle with! The benches apparently doubles up as beds where aspiring artists and writers (called Tumbleweeds) are welcome to stay in exchange for time spent manning the shop. In addition to looking after the shop, the Tumbleweeds are expected to read one book everyday and write a one-page autobiography. 

It’s almost unthinkable for a book lover to leave a bookstore without a book in hand; doing so in Shakespeare and Co would seem rather disrespectful. So after a lot of deliberation on budget and baggage restrictions, I picked up a small notebook with sketches of the greats on the cover and the signature stamp inside, hoping to write my one page autobiography in it soon!

The bag from Shakespeare & Co!

But there was no time for any doodling or dawdling now, for it was time to visit the Eiffel at last!

Tips:

1. Good walking shoes - I cannot stress enough the importance of a good pair of walking shoes!
2. Do pet the cat in Shakespeare & Co - unless there’s a cute sign which says that the cat is asleep and must not be disturbed, and yes, there is such a sign 😊
3. Also, take a bag from Shakespeare & Co - they have the most wonderful quotations on them!
4. Photography in Shakespeare & Co is not allowed, so please don’t sneakily click photos

Eiffel Tower

As I mentioned in Part One of the Paris travelogue, I was rather taken by the Eiffel Tower, from the first far sight. Up close, I hardly glanced at the ground, or at anything eye-level. I just couldn’t help gushing about the Eiffel Tower - its height, its latticed structure, its beigeness- and I went on gabbing, through security, through the strangely shaped elevator to the journey to the second floor. The elevator opened to the spectacular sight of the city of Paris, looking all the more glorious from a 100-odd meters above ground level. And that’s when I shut up.

The shadow of Eiffel Tower falls on the city

Oh, what a view it was! I could see Sacre Coeur blossoming like a white lily to my left and the Montparnasse rising like a black Stonehenge ahead. As I turned, mouth gaped in awe, the faint skyline of La Defense, Paris’ financial district appeared while the Seine slithered away below seemingly into the horizon, the bridges on it looking like dams.

The Montparnasse tower

Sacre Coeur (with 5x zoom!)

The Seine

But this wasn’t our final destination that day, for we had to travel 150 meters more, right to the apex of the Eiffel Tower.

There are two observation decks on the topmost floor of the Eiffel Tower - one indoor and one open air. The indoor deck has Gustave Eiffel’s office, a model of the top of the tower, a champagne bar and a chart comparing the height of Eiffel with other monuments around the world. While I half expected the Qutub Minar and the Taj Mahal to be on the list, I didn’t expect to see the Pitampura TV tower (!) in north Delhi on the list, but there it was!

Delhi is everywhere!!

From 273 meters above ground level, Paris was an absolute blur. All we could see was the orangish sun setting on a city filled with nondescript, matchbox-sized buildings. While Montparnasse was still distinctive, it took us some time to find Sacre Coeur as it had nearly disappeared amidst the choc-a-bloc buildings. We watched the Eiffel Tower sputter to life with its glittering lights as the sun set in the grey skies over Paris. While we liked the second floor more, for some, this view seemed to be exhilarating - as the first lights on the Eiffel went on, a marriage proposal was made and accepted. Paris is indeed, the city of love!

View of Montparnasse from the top

Sacre Coeur from the top (with a certain amount of zoom!)

Sunset over Paris

From the top, we went back to the second floor, from where Paris looked stunning. I have a theory that every city looks like a different piece of jewellery from the skies - Delhi, for example, used to look like a huge gold earring from the skies, before the pollution took over, while Mumbai looks like a glittery bracelet. Paris takes the jewellery simile one step ahead, and looks like an elegant platinum necklace, woven with gold and studded with diamonds. Were I a jewelry designer, I would’ve certainly started a collection of city-based jewelry, and kept the one inspired from Paris to myself :-p

Some of the beautiful views of the city of lights!

Tips: 

1. Everything on top of the Tower is expensive, including the souvenirs ( I did feel that spending 11 EUR on a tiny glass of champagne was a bit too much), so don’t expect to do a LOT of shopping there. However, drinking one cup of hot chocolate on top of the Eiffel is equally memorable! 
2. A thick jacket, pair of binoculars and a good quality camera are a prerequisite when going all the way to the top of the tower. 
3. You can't book tickets for the second floor and decide to go on the top on the spot at the Eiffel. You have to book tickets all the way to the top in advance, preferably online. 
4. Don't miss the statue of the liftman right next to the lift on the ground floor - it gives us a glimpse of how lifts were operated at the time of the construction of the Eiffel in 1889. Fun fact - the modern hydraulic lift was automated only in 1987! 

The liftman

 With the citylights gleaming ahead, the Eiffel Tower light beaming behind and the cool breeze blowing through my hair, I was boisterously blissful (yes, such a feeling exists!). All I wished to do at that moment was sing the first stanza of ‘An Evening In Paris’ a la Shammi Kapoor, but it was too cold!

Can't share the illuminated pic of the Eiffel for legal reasons, so here's a Prisma version!

But all good things come to an end, and so did day one in Paris. As we walked back to our hotel, I looked up to see the beamlight from Eiffel Tower rove across the inky blue sky and in my head, a modified version of Amitabh Bachchan’s dialogue from English VInglish played in my head -”Ye Paris me aapka pehla din hai, aur pehla din hamesha special rehta hai”. Little did I know that even the second and third day in Paris would be equally special. More on that in Partie Trois next week!